


The Genesis of Eve

by daphnerunning



Category: No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: Drag Queen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-05
Updated: 2011-10-05
Packaged: 2017-10-24 08:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphnerunning/pseuds/daphnerunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A boy learns how to apply lipstick. A rat becomes an actress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Genesis of Eve

His hands are shaking, and it takes three tries to color inside the lines. He’s run out of soft paper and rubs out the rest on a strip torn from his hem. It’s wrong, he knows he’s done it wrong, but Mika and Ari just laugh.

“It won’t matter,” they tell him.

Part of him wants to believe that it won’t matter because the audience will be too far away to see if his lipstick is crooked. Most of him knows what she really meant. He doesn’t need to hear Ari say it under her breath, and pretends he doesn’t.

Men are going to be watching him in the audience. Men have been watching him since he escaped the correctional facility. That’s why he always carries the knife.

Mika plucks the brush from his hand and replaces it with one of her own. “You want to use one that’s a little older on your eyes,” she says, batting her false lashes.

He doesn’t argue. He knows it’s a lie, and gladly gives her the brush in exchange for the lesson. Instead of using the frayed bristles of Mika’s old brush, he uses the tips of his fingers to dust his eyelids. It’s probably wrong, but no one’s going to see that from the stage.

And no matter what Ari and Mika thought, no one was going to get close enough afterwards.

It’s stupid to do something that makes men look at him more. He knows what they think of actors. He knows what men do when you’re pretty and they think they can get away with it.

He doesn’t paint himself like Ari and Mika do. He’s going to stand on a balcony and sigh, not sit on a food-baron’s lap and giggle. He’s not a whore like them. He won’t say he’ll die first, but he’ll certainly kill first.

 _It doesn’t matter. I’ll do whatever I have to, so I can survive._

The feel of silk billowing around his ankles is a new one; he lied to the casting director. He’d have lied a lot more if the director had asked more questions.

He almost lets himself sigh when he lets his hair down. That’s how his people used to wear it, back when he had people. Back when there was such a thing as safety. Back before he was a rat.

When he turns around to face Ari and Mika, their expressions freeze. They pretend after that. After they’ve seen him made up like Juliet, there’s no more chance of friendship. He’s going to take their jobs, the last vestiges of respectability they’ve got left, and they’ll go back to being desperate whores playing make-believe.

He sees the fear in their eyes, and he’s never felt so strong. It’s a job, only a job, something to keep him in books and knives until he can find a plan that works. It’s a way of passing time between the days that flame ravages everything outside those pristine walls.

“Well,” Mika says at last, cheeks pale beneath her paint, “who have we here?”

His name is Miki really, and his hand flutters up to rest self-consciously on his Adam’s Apple. Nezumi touches his own, and finds it slight in comparison. He’s never really noticed it, hidden by his cloak.

 _When Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, a piece of the fruit lodged in his throat. Adam couldn’t handle the truth,_ an amused woman’s voice says in his mind. _Men never can._ The sound brings the smell of crisp pine needles and a cool breeze.

 _I know the truth. I can handle it. Whatever it takes, I can handle it._

“Come on, Nezumi,” Ari says, trying to tease. “You can’t play Juliet as Rat. For heaven’s sake, no one gives a shit who you are. They’re only here to kill time before they rape you in the alley afterwards.”

It didn’t matter. She was right, of course, and no one was going to be listening to the words— _beautiful words, wrought by a master_ —that he said, dangling out of a balcony.

Once, he’d been the one looking up at a balcony.

 _I’ve known the truth of the world. I can handle it._

Nezumi strides out of the room, feeling the other men glare their cold hatred at his back.

Eve walks onstage.

 

 

 

 


End file.
